Badminton Baby's Sports Feature

By BADMINTON BABY

01 August 2010

A couple of weeks have passed since I was accosted by bad, ostensibly to “share my sporting expertise with the wider baby audience” and definitely not to fill a gap. 2 weeks later, deadline in sight, blank page in hand I’m beginning to regret ever choosing a baby name involving a sport (however obscure).

I’ve decided to split the page into 2, a summary and a feature. Armed with this breadth and depth readers should be able to converse with even the most monosyllabic of cabbies.

Summary

• Entire French football team suspended.
• Former England star Jason Robinson comes out of retirement to sign for Fylde.
• Ferrari cheat (again) as Fernando Alonso wins German Grand Prix.
• Phil “The Power” Taylor wins 11th World Match Play dart championship.
• England still suck at football.

Feature: Le Tour de France

The Tour de France usually passes me by without so much as a spoke in the rim. This year, however, has been truly enthralling with blood sweat and tears in equal amounts. I’d better explain why.

The tour consists of 20 stages in which riders cover up to 230km a day or over 6 hours in the saddle. Riders compete for one of several competitions with the leader of each awarded a coloured jersey.

• The General Classification (Yellow Jersey) is for the cyclist completing the course in the shortest time.
• The White Jersey for the best young rider.
• Riders are awarded points for winning a stage or by being one of the first through checkpoints round the course for the green sprint jersey.
• Finally the polker dot jersey for the rider who collects the most points from making it to peaks first.

Blood

My intrigue started during the first couple of days, it was so shockingly brutal, a tough course and poor weather conditions meant that 50kmph crashes were a plenty with over half the field crashing one day and one of the favourites having to pull out after breaking his collar bone.

Sweat

Spaniard Alberto Contador finished in first place in the general classification taking his third Tour de France but was hounded through the mountains by the young Luxembourg contender Andy Schlek. The two ride side by side head and shoulders above the rest of the field through the Pyrenees chased by mad naked fans running 6 inches either side of the pair.

Tears

Bradley Wiggins sorely disappointed British fans after his shock 4th in 2009 so Britain was effectively represented by Mark Cavendish. Cavendish is the fastest sprinter in the world but finished the first week without a win, having had his arse metaphorically handed to him on a platter by older, gnarlier men. His private life had been fraught with controversy including when he walked out on his fiancé of several years for a short relationship with a former Miss Italy, he looked like a man at breaking point. When he eventually won a stage by the tiniest of margins he sobbed like a baby on the podium.